RoguePundit

Homeless Sent Home

According to the San Francisco Homeless Services Coalition:

- San Francisco has the highest per capita rate of homelessness of any major American city.  7,000 homeless people live in SF at a given time.  Some estimates put the number as high as 15,000 (SF Plan to Abolish Chronic Homelessness).

- Only 15% of the homeless in SF are from out of state.  Another 15% are from out of the city.  Over 60% of SF’s homeless are natives (SF Bay Area counties point-in-time counts).

Switching links... 

An estimated 6,000 to 12,000 people are homeless on any given night in San Francisco, according to officials with Project Homeless Connect, which was launched by Mayor Gavin Newsom. But the program, and others he’s championed, has resulted in 10,000 people leaving San Francisco’s streets and shelters since 2004, he said.

The results would be more impressive if not for the following.

More than 4,000 of the previously homeless people in San Francisco were returned to their home cities with a bus ticket funded through The City’s Homeward Bound Program, according to the Mayor’s Office.

Gosh, is that considered progressive now?  No doubt a complementary one-way bus ticket was how a few of those folks got to San Francisco, but still...

According to the program’s outreach information, Homeward Bound applicants must have a place to reside at the destination city where there's "ample support." Program staff contact family or friends at the destination before the homeless person is given a ticket, and they follow up with the participant one month later to check on their well-being.

However, Jennifer Friedenbach, executive director of the San Francisco-based Coalition on Homelessness, was skeptical of the mayor’s assertions.

"You can’t claim you housed people by giving them a bus ticket," she said.

In too many bureaucracies, an action passed is an action completed. 

Deluxe Ambulance Service

The major concern wasn't that the following patient could die of embarrassment.

The memory still bothers Ken Keller: A panicked ambulance crew had a critically ill patient, but the man weighed more than 1,000 pounds and could not fit inside the vehicle. And the stretcher wasn't sturdy enough to hold him.

The crew offered an idea to Keller, who was then an investigator with the Kansas Board of Emergency Medical Services. Could they use a forklift to load the man — bed and all — onto a flatbed truck? Keller agreed: There was no other choice.

"I'm sure it was terribly embarrassing to be in his own bed, riding on the back of a flatbed with straps tying him down, going to the hospital, and then have a forklift at the hospital unload him," Keller said.

Sadly, the article included no mention of the feeder--the person who enabled the man to get that morbidly obese.  People who are 1,000 pounds can't fend for themselves, yet someone obviously keeps bringing them plenty of food. Why are we ignoring the people who help create this type of problem?

As the nation battles the obesity crisis, ambulance crews are trying to improve how they transport extremely heavy patients, who become significantly more difficult to move as they surpass 350 pounds. And caring for such patients is expensive, requiring costly equipment and extra workers, so some ambulance companies have started charging higher fees for especially overweight people.

The move to modify ambulances is just the latest effort to accommodate plus-sized patients. Some hospitals already offer specially designed beds, wheelchairs, walkers and even commodes.

Ambulance companies say it's time for insurance providers, Medicaid and Medicare, or patients themselves to begin paying the added costs, which are cutting into their razor-thin profit margins.

...

Higher payments for heavy patients are commonplace in Oregon and Washington because the insurance industry there acknowledges the additional costs, said Liz Merritt, a spokeswoman for Scottsdale, Ariz.-based Rural/Metro Corporation, an ambulance provider.

With obesity on the rise, the manufacturing of bariatric equipment and supplies is booming. Meanwhile, some figure that having to pay extra for specialized service using such equipment is discrimination. 

"Ambulance services are a critical public service and should accommodate the needs of all of those who require them at a fair cost," said Joseph Nadglowski, president of the Obesity Action Coalition, a group that advocates for the obese.

Activists use the term "fair" when they want more of our money.  Of course, it's rather perverse seeing advocates of healthcare reform decry discrimination based upon pre-existing conditions, and then recommend penalizing folks for conditions like obesity. 

Moving Transients Through Alcohol

The Washington-Jefferson Park in Eugene has become a popular transient hangout.  Sadly but not necessarily surprisingly, crime and public drunkenness in the area are up.  How have authorities chosen to address this?  More police involvement and...

Oregon Liquor Control Commission regulators have asked the owners of the Neighborhood Market, 7-Eleven and Jacksons to pull the cheapest malt liquor beverages from their shelves because their heavy consumption by transients is contributing to alcohol-related crime and problems in the Whiteaker and downtown areas.

Asked?  Right.  It was Mayor Kitty Percy who asked the OLCC to get involved.

"We have been working on trying to negotiate something with the store owners for the last month," OLCC Regional Manager Pete O'Rourke said. "We prefer that the businesses stop selling (the alcohol) voluntarily."

The stores would continue selling a wide variety of beer and wine, but regulators want them to curb the sale of malt liquors that cost less than $2.50 for a 24-ounce or 32-ounce can or bottle. Two of the most popular brands of that type are Steel Reserve High Gravity and Hurricane High Gravity, which contain much higher levels of alcohol than most beers. The beverages are sold in many stores.

In interviews, the three store owners said they will consider OLCC's request, but that they would be reluctant to pull the products if other convenience stores can continue to sell them.

Move the transients, move the problems.  Store owners in other areas would then profit while a new set of nearby residents and businesses would suffer. Great.

Of note though is that the owner of the Neighborhood Market, Nick Dhote, isn't helping the situation.  He claims he's being unfairly blamed for the situation in and around the park, but...

Police cited Dhote four times in the past several weeks, including twice last week for selling alcohol to an intoxicated person and a minor, said Fitzpatrick, the police sergeant.

Retailers who are convicted of liquor law violations are subject to fines. Multiple convictions can lead to license suspensions and revocations.

That's a legitimate reason for the OLCC to get involved.  The following is just thuggish behavior. 

O’Rourke, the OLCC regional manager, said that if the store owners don’t cooperate with authorities to curb public intoxication, they can expect frequent visits by investigators looking for liquor violations.

By the way, Steel Reserve High Gravity is made by a subsidiary of MillerCoors LLC, a joint venture of SAB Miller and Molson Coors.  Because of the success of Steel Reserve, Anheuser-Busch developed a similar product, Hurricane High Gravity.  For when drinking is merely a means to an end...

Less Publishing, More Care

Here's another example of spending research dollars to document something we already knew.

A recent study has found that young adults are much less likely to use ambulatory or preventive care, even though their mortality rate is more than twice that of adolescents.

"Young adults are generally a healthy population, but many risky behaviors peak in young adulthood and few resources are available for this population," said Robert J.Fortuna, M.D., M.P.H., senior instructor in Pediatrics and Internal Medicine at the University of Rochester Medical Center (URMC). "Despite having the highest rate of many preventable diseases, young adults garner relatively little attention from advocacy groups, researchers or policymakers."

...

Ambulatory care may be relatively underused by this age group for a number of reasons, including limited access to care, lack of health insurance and low self-perceived risk, explained the authors. Young adults are the most likely age group to be uninsured, with nearly one-third lacking medical coverage. The study found that young adults without insurance had one-fourth as many visits as those with insurance.

The prevalence of substance abuse, sexually transmitted diseases (STDs), homicide and motor vehicle crashes all peak in young adulthood. Yet the study’s findings show that when young adults were offered counseling, which occurred at about one third of all ambulatory care visits, they infrequently received counseling directed at the greatest threats to their health.

And as one would figure, men sought far less preventative care than women, and young black and Hispanic men received less care than young white men.

As one would figure, the study is being used to lobby for more money.

The authors pointed to the goals of Healthy People 2010, a set of national objectives provided by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, as an important reason to evaluate how ambulatory care is used by young adults. The set objectives aim to reduce mortality, motor vehicle crashes, the incidence of STDs and alcohol- and drug-related injuries among young adults. The study concludes that to reach these goals, young adults need to have access to resources that will help them receive appropriate preventive care, especially given the current underuse of ambulatory care services and insufficient amount of counseling available to young adults.

Too bad the money used on this research didn't go towards trying to reach those goals.

Shifting Risk Rather Than Solving Problems

I can't believe the utility company might get away with this.

Even as firefighters continue fighting the Station fire, the largest brush fire in Los Angeles County history, an emotionally charged issue is flaring over how to avoid a repeat of the disastrous 2007 fires in San Diego County.

On Thursday, the Public Utility Commission is set to vote on a San Diego Gas & Electric Co. proposal to turn off power to some back-country areas during fire-prone times of high winds and low humidity. 

The fires, which burned more than 200,000 acres and destroyed more than 1,500 homes, were caused by sparking electrical wires blown down by unusually fierce Santa Ana winds. Power company executives say the shut-off plan would be used sparingly and with several hours' notice. The company has offered to buy generators for schools and sent debit cards to low-income elderly residents in case their homes are without power and they need to evacuate.

For people with health problems who could find themselves without power to run breathing machines and other life-saving equipment, the company is offering emergency transportation to hospitals.

Time out.  If power lines are designed and strung correctly, winds can't blow the lines together.  Yes lines can stretch over time, which is one of the reasons they need periodic maintenance.  In some situations, using line separators is appropriate.  Yet, the proposed solution in San Diego County is to shut off power rather than fixing the problems? 

What about the water supplies needed to fight fires?  Rural water districts and individuals with wells had better have back-up generators, or the homeowners won't be able to help protect their property. 

It figures that city folks would think this is a good idea.

The City Council has endorsed the utility's plan. "We cannot afford to keep crossing our fingers and hoping that catastrophic fires won't spread into the city of San Diego from the rural areas of the county," said Councilwoman Marti Emerald as the council prepared to vote recently.

But the supervisors voted 3 to 2 to oppose it. Chairwoman Dianne Jacob, who represents much of the fire-prone back country, is pointed in her criticism of San Diego Gas & Electric Co., a division of Sempra Energy. She says the company is trying to avoid spending money to "harden" its operation by installing underground lines, metal poles and devices that keep wires from battering each other. 

"This has nothing to do with safety," Jacob said. "It's about saving money for SDG&E and shifting liability to other people and agencies."

...

The company recently agreed to pay $740 million to insurance companies for property damage done by the Witch, Rice and Guejito fires that roared through the county in October 2007.

Power companies usually go to extra effort to prevent poles in soggy settings from rotting and toppling.  But in highly fire-prone settings, they roll the dice...maybe that needs to change.  Going to underground lines would improve safety and reliability...they might prove worth the higher installation costs.

Niggli said the company has spent more than $40 million on system improvements and preparation for the shut-off program. He said computer modeling shows that no more than 10,000 customers would be without power in any incident. Also, the company notes that San Diego is the only major county in the state without a county fire department.

So what...it's not as if those rural areas lack fire protection.  Quoting a previous post on this topic...

Rural San Diego County doesn't have a centralized fire department, instead relying upon a number of independent operations.  The quality varies widely, generally dependent upon the affluence of the local community. 

There has been a push in San Diego County to merge the rural fire departments and set a common standard.  However, the $110 million price tag (an '05 estimate) has been a wee daunting.  Plus, several communities don't want to lose local control or, in some cases, see their tax dollars going to support others.

The affluent there can afford enviable fire protection.  Other areas go with more spartan set-ups.  Advocates of a centralized department are killing their chances by asking for way too much.  A sub-plot to this is the expense of firefighters on government payrolls. 

We here in rural Josephine County can relate to spartan firefighting set-ups.  We also eschew a county fire department, instead relying upon volunteer or private fire departments.  Two of our three private operations offer substandard service, and nothing forces residents in these areas to purchase any fire protection.  Those of us who pay for the best service available--modest capability--are put at risk by those who purchase the substandard services or nothing at all.  Gee, let's make things safer here by shutting off the power during periods of high wind and low humidity.

Do you suppose the Grants Pass City Council is stupid enough to think that's a good idea?  Don't answer that.

Wasting Food for Cancer

Each year, the Spanish town of Buñol hosts La Tomatina, a fiesta that features the world's largest tomato fight.  Over 20,000 people hurl more than 90,000 pounds of tomatoes for no historical reason...the event was created to draw tourists to the town.  It's grown into a week-long event that's culminated by the battle, which occurs on the last Wednesday in August.

This evening, Reno NV held its own La Tomatina.

"We're about to make Reno history," said Phil Kenny, director of Club Cal-Neva casino operations who organized the event.

Kenny said he planned the event as the request of his boss, who asked him to do an event to attract people downtown. He chose to duplicate La Tomatina because it was "bizarre," but something "we could possibly do."

He hoped to raise $50,000 for the American Cancer Society.

As for plans for next year, Kenny said he will have 100,000 pounds of tomatoes on hand instead of 50,000.

Guess we'll just ignore the environmental impact and the waste of food...it's for a good cause.

Within seconds of start time, tomatoes flew above the crowd and stayed in constant motion like flies buzzing above a carcass.

Nothing and no one remained unscathed--not onlooking bystanders nor the pavement of First and Virginia Streets.

...

People leaving the event had sundry ideas for getting home: plunging in the Truckee River, walking back to their hotel or getting into a car covered with towels.

The mayors of both Reno and nearby Sparks also subjected themselves to tomato hurlers to help raise money.

Trying to Profit from Disaster

Folks near Galveston Bay (TX) got hit hard by Hurricane Rita in 2006...but not as hard as a few of them claimed. 

In an indictment unsealed Wednesday, the six members of the High Island Cattle Association and another rancher were accused of supporting each others’ claims of cattle losses in affidavits that the U.S. Attorney’s Office said were false. The ranchers sought federal money to cover their losses through the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Livestock Indemnity Program.

Prosecutors allege the cattle claimed to have been swept into the Gulf of Mexico or to have drowned never existed. None of those indicted actually live on the peninsula.

...

The indictment alleges after the suspects learned of the federal program that would reimburse each rancher up to $80,000, they conspired to make claims and support each others’ losses through eyewitness affidavits that they lost 500 head of cattle to Rita, which sideswiped High Island.

There's already far too much farm disaster pork (previous blogs here and here), and yet we've got these residents of Houston and Beaumont lying to get even more.  At least it stimulates the economy...

A Cool July...Elsewhere

While many of us here in the West suffered through a hot July, the same certainly wasn't true for the majority of Americans.  Only 10 states had above-average temperatures for the month of July, while 6 states had their coolest July on record (115 years) and another 18 were within the coolest 10 percent on record.  The stability of the jet stream during much of the month helped accentuate the conditions.

Overall, this cooler weather has been good for energy bills...and thus emissions.

Based on NOAA's Residential Energy Demand Temperature Index, the contiguous U.S. temperature-related energy demand was 13.3 percent below average in July. Much of this can be attributed to cooler-than-average conditions in the heavily-populated Northeast.

And since the vast majority of our forest fires consume renewable assets, the following shouldn't count against climate change...though air quality is obviously another story.

July wildfire activity was below average, although the year-to-date number of wildfires remains above the 2000-2009 average. Last month, 8,515 new wildfires were reported and a total of about 1.7 million acres were burned, primarily in the West and Alaska, according to the National Interagency Coordination Center.

Year to date, the NICC shows 59,766 fires involving 5,030,735 acres, as compared to ten-year averages of 56,081 fires involving 4,534,663 acres.  Overall, less than half of the acreage burned this year has been federal lands. Drilling down a bit, Alaska's 503 fires have consumed 2,913,161 acres, almost 58 percent of the national total this year...it's been hot and dry in much of the interior there.  Meanwhile, over half of the fires in the nation have occurred in the Southern Region, which also includes Puerto Rico and the eastern portions of Texas and Oklahoma.  Yes, grass fires count.

And in case you're interested...

and...

California has been hoping that the El Niño will bring a wet winter.

Fencing and Verification

The virtual fence along our border with Mexico hasn't worked well (previous blog here).  Despite that, the Department of Homeland Security--bolstered by $100 million in stimulus funds--decided earlier this year to continue moving forward with the effort.  Construction resumed in May.  However yesterday...

The Senate voted 54-44 today in favor of requiring physical fencing along 700 miles of the U.S.-Mexico border. Senator Jim DeMint's amendment to Homeland Security's 2010 Appropriation Bill states that ineffective fencing to restrain pedestrians such as vehicle barriers and virtual fencing cannot be used to meet the 700 miles of fencing required by law. Instead, reinforced double-layer fencing must be installed by December 31, 2010.

The original bill mandated that 370 miles of (actual) fencing be completed by the end of last year.  As of yesterday, just 34.3 miles was done.   

Meanwhile back in February...

The House version of the economic stimulus package requires companies that receive contracts for projects funded by the bill to use the E-Verify system to check the eligibility of their employees to work in the U.S.

The Obama administration, meanwhile, has delayed implementation of a new rule that would require federal contractors to use E-Verify. The rule, which was issued by the Bush administration, was scheduled to go into effect Feb. 20, but the Obama administration postponed implementation until May 21 so it can review it.

Some figured that President Obama would quietly reauthorize E-Verify because it would blunt some of the energy behind comprehensive immigration reform.  Don't know if that was the motivation or not, but...

The Obama administration said Wednesday it would implement a Bush-era program targeting federal contractors that hire illegal immigrants.

The program, which is unpopular in the business community, will cut across all sectors of the economy, affecting about 170,000 companies, from health care to construction to weapons makers, as well as many other industries that receive government business or federal stimulus funds.

The program requires that companies check whether employees are entitled to work in the U.S. through the government's E-Verify system, which compares names and Social Security numbers with a government database.

Targeted companies range from prime contractors with more than $100,000 in annual government business to subcontractors earning more than $3,000 in taxpayer money.

However...

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce sued the government in December to halt the program, calling it unlawful.  That litigation, pending in a Maryland federal court, is likely to move forward now that the Obama administration has embraced the program.

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce supports amnesty, but calls it comprehensive immigration reform. The "world's largest business federation" has recommendations for our "wasteful and inefficient" health care system, but few of these businesses provide health care to their employees needing amnesty.  We get higher unemployment and the privilege of subsidizing what health care the illegal aliens get, in exchange for some cheaper products...and the Chamber is suing to help keep it that way. 

Comparisons Across the Atlantic

Ahhh, Typepad is back up for me.  Anyway, the following is from a interesting and lengthy essay by UCLA historian Peter Baldwin on how the U.S. and Europe are more alike than either tends to believe.  He's promoting his upcoming book on the subject.  Before diving into a few of the comparisons, a note on his sources...

The data in this essay comes mostly from a handful of organizations that devote significant efforts to presenting internationally comparable figures: the UN, UNESCO, UNICEF, WHO, the IMF, the World Bank, Eurostat, the Sutton Trust, the World Values Survey, the ILO, the International Agency for Research on Cancer, the International Association for the Study of Obesity, the World Resources Institute, the International Energy Agency, the International Social Survey Programme and, above all, the OECD.

Though his essay touched on a wide range of subjects, I'll focus mainly on the environmental portions.

Although oil use per capita is high in America, measured as a function of economic production (in other words, putting the input in relation to the output), it remains within European norms and, indeed, lower than Portugal, Greece, Belgium, Luxembourg, the Netherlands and Iceland.

Between 1990 and 2002, America's carbon dioxide output rose, but per unit of GDP it fell by 17 percent--a greater reduction than in nine western European countries.

In its output of renewable energy, the US is in the middle of the spectrum on all counts, whether biogas, solid biomass energy, geothermal or wind. American spending (public and private) on pollution abatement and control as a percentage of GDP is bested only in Austria, Denmark, Italy and the Netherlands.

Actually, we just passed Germany last year to become the world leader in wind energy production. And while Baldwin didn't mention water quality--both drinking water and sewage, few nations compare favorably to the U.S. on that subject.  

Also note that we're not quite as addicted to autos as carpocalyptic folks would have us believe. 

Despite the myths of a hyper-motorized nation, Americans own fewer passenger cars per head than the French, Austrians, Swiss, Germans, Luxembourgers and Italians. Per capita, Americans rely on their cars more than Europeans. But adjusting for the size of the country, automobile usage is lower only in Finland, Sweden and Greece.

Similarly, Americans produce a lot of waste per capita, though the Norwegians are worse, and the Irish and Danes are close competitors. But they recycle as well as the Finns and the French, and better than the British, Greeks and Portuguese. Since 1990, Americans' production of waste has scarcely gone up per capita, while in all European nations for which figures are available, there have been big increases--70 percent in Spain, almost 60 percent in Italy and over 30 percent in Sweden.

...

The environmental activist Jeremy Rifkin insists that Europeans--unlike Americans--have "a love for the intrinsic value of nature. One can see it in Europeans' regard for the rural countryside and their determination to maintain natural landscape." Actually, the percentage of national territory protected in the US is about double that of France, Britain or even Sweden.

And conventional American farmers are far less chemicalized than their European colleagues. Thanks partly to their use of GM crops, they use pesticides sparingly. The Italians use over seven times as much, the Belgians even more.

Part of the reason it seems that Europeans place more emphasis on environmental issues is that most of the nations there are more densely populated and polluted than the U.S. 

And when it comes to Americans and reading...

By European standards, the percentage of illiterate Americans is average. There are more newspapers per capita in the US than anywhere in Europe outside Scandinavia, Switzerland and Luxembourg.

The long tradition of well-funded public libraries in the US means that the average American reader is better supplied with library books than his peers in Germany, Britain, France, the Netherlands, Austria and all the Mediterranean nations. They also make better use of these public library books than most Europeans. The average American borrowed more library books in 2001 than his or her peers in Germany, Austria, Norway, Ireland, Luxembourg, France and throughout the Mediterranean.

Not content with borrowing, Americans also buy more books per capita than any Europeans for whom we have numbers. And they write more books per capita than most Europeans, too.

It will be interesting to see how statisticians will adjust to measuring the amount of reading people do on-line.